Sermon: Kol Nidre 5784 – It is time to stand up for our liberal, tolerant tradition

Written by Rabbi Josh Levy — 24 September 2023

“We are witnessing a decisive moment in Jewish history; the invention of a new kind of Judaism…”
“[This is] a struggle to save Judaism itself… the threat is spiritual destruction”.

This was the stark warning issued by the Israeli historian, philosopher and author, Yuval Noah Harari, during his recent visit to the UK.

Harari, a secular Israeli, has been on a significant journey over the last year. From a position somewhat removed from Israeli, and especially Jewish, politics, he now finds himself at the heart of the opposition movement, standing against the judicial overhaul being brought forward by the current Israeli government.

What makes Harari’s voice so powerful in this movement is the overview that he brings. As one might expect from the author of sweeping intellectual histories.

Harari warns of the implications beyond the narrow politics of Israel, implications for the nature of Judaism itself. He cautions that the removal of checks and balances in the Israeli system is designed to allow a determined minority to reshape Israeli society, and that they will seek to do so around a vision of Judaism that is new and highly problematic.

This is thus, he suggests, not merely a political, a legal crisis for Israel, but a spiritual crisis for all of us as Jews around the world.

If Israel, as the most public expression of our religion and culture in the world, comes to represent a Judaism that is based on, in his words, a principle of Jewish supremacy; If it comes to represent a Judaism that is discriminatory, intolerant, and oppressive, one that does not have at its heart concern for the vulnerable, then this will redefine Judaism for all of us.

Every Jew around the world will have to explain themselves, to justify themselves, if only to themselves, in relation to this Judaism.

As he put it, the way to judge a tree is by its fruit. And Israel is the most visible fruit of the Jewish people.
“What is at stake is the very meaning of what it means to be a Jew…”

***

Harari is a deeply compelling thinker and speaker.
And whatever might happen in Israeli politics over the coming days, what he has identified is profoundly important and should be of great concern to all of us as we enter this new year.

There are emerging, in fact have emerged, two very different versions of Jewish tradition; two very different visions of what Judaism can and should look like. Two very different understandings of the primary responsibilities of Jewish life; two very different readings of our textual heritage.

As Jews we are inheritors of a rich textual legacy. One which contains multiple voices, one that is often in tension with itself. There is always a danger of only pulling out those ideas, those texts, that support your pre-existing view. So, it is important to recognise the voices in our tradition that are there that support this ‘new Judaism’ which worries Harari so much.  Harari is wrong, I think, when he calls it an ‘invention of a new kind of Judaism’. More, perhaps, a reclaiming of a latent tradition.

But where he is right is in his concern that this not be allowed to become the dominant voice. That if it is allowed to be the most public face of Judaism in the world this will be a re-defining of what it means for all of us to be Jewish in the world.

Because the Judaism that Harari warns about; that we see in rhetoric and in action in Israel today, this is not normative Judaism. It is in conflict with core Jewish ideals expressed in our tradition, ideals which should shape the way in which Jews with power behave.
As Jews we are heirs to a two-thousand-year history of tolerance, and of liberalism. One which now calls on all of us to defend it.

***

Our tradition contains a deep concern for those who are vulnerable. We are enjoined not only to love our neighbour but also, a few verses later, on the stranger. Our care extends beyond our own kin, to those who fall within our power. In Leviticus we are explicitly instructed “when a stranger lives with you in your land, do not oppress him; the stranger who lives with you is as one of your citizens, and you should love him as yourself”.

Our tradition recognises the importance of the relationships between communities. When faced with complex relationships between Jew and non-Jew in the first centuries CE, the rabbis prioritised acting ‘mipnei darchei shalom’ – ‘for the sake of peace’. We are instructed to lend items to the non-Jew, to visit them when they are sick, to help with their burial, to look after their poor – mipnei darchei shalom.
This was both a pragmatic requirement, necessary as our ancestors negotiated the reality of living with their non-Jewish neighbours, and an expression of a religious ideal. For Maimonides, it was linked to a verse in Psalm 145: ‘tov Adonai la-kol, v’rachamav al kol ma’asav’ – ‘God is good to all, God’s mercy extends over all God’s works’. That is, our concern extends beyond ourselves and those who are like us.

Our tradition, too, contains openness to the possibility of other religious practice. Again, this was both a pragmatic position reflecting the realities of life – Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai warned “Do not hurry to destroy the high places of others, in case you then have to re-build them with your own hands” – but also a theological position. Save for belief in idolatry, which they utterly rejected, the Sages understood that there were multiple paths to Truth – they were not exclusivist in their theology. To again quote Maimonides, ‘chasidei umot olam, yeish lahem chelek l’olam haba’ – the righteous of the nations have a place in the world to come.

Our tradition recognises the inevitability and desirability of diversity of view and practice. It retained diversity of views even where halachah was established, privileged the conversation, the dialogue. As I spoke about at length on this evening last year, one of the fundamental requirements of the rabbinic exercise was the ability to speak to someone else of a different view, to make multiple arguments, to see beyond one’s own opinion.

Our tradition privileges the ideal of p’sharah, of compromise, recognising that when we are certain about our rightness we run the risk of disaster. The example the Talmud gives is of two ships in a narrow channel or two laden camels on a mountain pass. Ultimately if neither ship or camel gives way then neither can move without compromise. And if both try to move, both insist they have the right to the path, then both might sink; both might fall from the mountain.

Ultimately, our tradition recognises the imperfection of human knowledge, and cautions us not to take extreme positions: “It is beyond the human mind to fathom the designs of the creator”, as Maimonides, once again, put it.

Yes, these are not the only voices in our tradition, but they are loud and important ones, and they matter.
This Judaism is a religion of goodness and decency and kindness; it is one that speaks up for the vulnerable rather than making them more so; one that believes in dialogue and meeting the other; one that recognises complexity and nuance; that privileges conversation and compromise.

A Judaism that is not these things is not just “not my Judaism” as the bumper stickers and badges of the current protests declare. It is not Judaism.
Certainly not a Judaism anyone who spends their life immersed in our texts should recognise.
It is not honest about our texts and our heritage; not – for want of a better word – an ‘authentic’ expression of Jewish voice.

***

So how do we respond?
What does this moment demand of us?

For Harari, the demand of this moment is clear. There is a need to defend the Israeli judicial system. To oppose changes that might give this new Judaism power.
If Harari is right, and he surely is, this is not just a matter for Israelis, but for Jews around the world. The greatest threat to Jewish life at this moment comes from within – and to it we must respond, just as we have when the threat has come from without.

This is a moment for courage in our Zionism here in the diaspora.
The courage to stand alongside our colleagues and friends in the Progressive movement in Israel, who have been so vocal in the democracy protests.

The courage to make our voices heard. To quote the prophet Isaiah, “l’ma’an Tzion lo echesheh” – “For the sake of Zion I will not be silent”.

***

But there is something more.  We also need to recommit ourselves to the Judaism that we do believe in.

We have to acknowledge something: We have ceded the ground of religious discourse to those whose Judaism does not reflect our values. We can do so no longer.

If we want a Judaism that is open and tolerant and inclusive, one that reflects those core liberal ideals in our rich inheritance, then we have to be willing to fight for it.

We need to recommit ourselves to living it in our lives.
We need to commit to the strength of its institutions: helping its places of worship to grow and to build; supporting those charities that speak on social issues with a liberal religious voice. And supporting its movements – the organisations that strengthen it and represent it in the world. We need to recommit ourselves to its youth movements, to its education programmes, to its work with students and young adults, so that these, rather than the other voice, are the voices of our tradition that our young people hear.
And if we do not, we will have no one to blame but ourselves.

We need to recommit ourselves to the place of liberal religion in our society, as a response to the challenges of modern society, as a voice for good in the world.

***

And something else.
Uncomfortable as it might feel for us, we also need to reclaim our identity as people of religion not merely of reason. We must reject the strange idea that the more fundamentalist you are, then the more religious you are; challenge the phenomenon by which extremism is equated with authenticity.
Every time the word ‘religious’ is used as a synonym for those on the extreme, a synonym for those with narrow politics, those who seek to limit the freedoms and choices of others, we need to object, to scream in our thousands, ‘No, that is not religion. We are the voice of religion. We are people of faith, too, and that is not our voice.”

We must declare that, if you do not believe in kindness, do not protect the vulnerable, do not engage in dialogue, do not recognise complexity, do not believe in compromise, then from a Jewish perspective, you are not religious, however often you go to shul, wherever you might live, whatever your personal practice, whatever your politics.

***

“What is at stake is the very meaning of what it means to be a Jew…”
I do not believe that this is hyperbole.

We are inheritors of a tolerant and liberal Jewish tradition of which we should be deeply proud. The warning of Yuval Noah Harari is that it is in danger of being superseded by a very different form of Judaism and Jewish life.
The warning is that one day we may wake up and discover Judaism in the world does not look like the Judaism we believe in.

This is a struggle to save Judaism itself, he warns – and it is one in which each of us must now play our part.